Scott Turow Outlines ‘The Slow Death of the American Author’

He blamed low foreign resales of used books, eBook royalties, digital piracy, academics and rumors about a used marketplace to illustrate “how the global electronic marketplace is rapidly depleting authors’ income streams.” The long essay had a section arguing that libraries no longer have the best interests of authors at heart. What do you think?

Now many public libraries want to lend e-books, not simply to patrons who come in to download, but to anybody with a reading device, a library card and an Internet connection. In this new reality, the only incentive to buy, rather than borrow, an e-book is the fact that the lent copy vanishes after a couple of weeks. As a result, many publishers currently refuse to sell e-books to public libraries.

Recently, Turow attacked Amazon’s acquisition of Goodreads, declaring that “Amazon has scuttled that potential and also squelched what was fast becoming the go-to venue for on-line reviews.” If you want to hear more from Turow, we hosted a three-part interview with the author. Follow these links to watch.